Blurry Edges
by K. Elisabeth
Summary: Cristina Yang's reflection on her edge, how and why she lost it. End of 2.27, Burtina. Rated T for mild language better safe than sorry.


**A/N:** I don't think I've posted any of my Grey's Anatomy fics up here yet (if I have, forgive my mistake). Anyway, this is my first attempt at writing from Cristina's PoV, it's more frequently Izzie or Meredith. I had a lot of fun with it, delving into what I think her end-of-Season-2 emotions are likely to be. Be your own judge of that. R&R is loved, loved, LOVED! So please take the time to let me know what you think.

**Disclaimer: You caught me. I don't own any of Grey's Anatomy. Not the actors/characters, they are employed by ABC. Not the plot of the series, that is owned by Shonda Rhimes (who, coincidentally, owns my soul, but that's another conversation entirely). I just play around with it, so please, don't shoot!**

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_"I had an edge, sir. I had an edge and I lost it."_

Where had the edge gone? It used to be there; razor-sharp and fine, so sharp that even a scalpel paled in comparison. She was tough, she was hard, she was distant. Nothing penetrated the shell, nobody climbed over the wall. She was cool and unaffected, solid and controlled. Emotions were messy, and deserved to be boxed up and neatly organized, put away on a shelf and monitored carefully. Cristina Yang was skilled at this task; she was the master of her emotions.

Was, anyway. Past-tense. Not in the present time. It was something about Seattle Grace. Maybe it was all the rain, some kind of subconscious alteration of her inner self. Maybe it was being outside a 100 mile radius of her mother that allowed her guard to fall. Maybe it was all the coffee and hot sex, changing her mental status.

Whatever it was, Cristina didn't know the answer, and that unnerved her. It made her restless and uneasy, shifted her focus. She used to be so focused; sharp, attentive, completely task-at-hand. Everything was clean-cut, lines distinctive and respected. She was the job, the job was Cristina; nobody and nothing could touch her. Nobody could touch her then.

Then. Pre-Seattle Grace, she was alone. Alone is not lonely, do not confuse the two words; they are not interchangeable. There is a distinct difference between being separate from your emotions, and being in a void without them. Back then, Cristina was just Cristina, looking out for number one, with a few acquaintances. Not sure if you could even call them friends, really. Just classmates, roommates, acquaintances. There was no closeness, no mushy feelings shared, no breaking of boundaries. The walls were cemented and solid, the emotions always in check, the personal lines drawn and well-defined. She had nobody to bring her coffee in the morning, nobody to do shots with at night, nobody to curl up in bed with. But she liked it that way.

Not anymore. Now there were people all over the place, infiltrating all kinds of places that had previously been unoccupied. They were not just crossing the lines, they were leaping over them in huge careless bounds. They were unleashing emotions within her that had been so well-guarded, so in check. Damn those people. _They_ were the reason she was so blurry, so scattered. They were the reason she lost her edge. They took it.

Meredith took her edge. With her wallowing pity, her self-destructive relationships that always came back to slap her in the face. If it wasn't Derek it was the erection guy, yet another way for the dead-on-dead-again McDreamy relationship to blow up in new and unexpected ways. Or the tattoo guy, the dishes guy, the hairy-back guy. Always with the mending through drunken sexcapades. She needed Cristina there to hold her together, like friends do. _Friends_. It was a word Cristina had hardly any use for before she came to Seattle, and now they were cropping up everywhere. Like some kind of ferocious bacteria that just multiplies exponentially. Meredith was her "person", her friend, the kind of person you had to be a rock for and go to their house to kick their self-pitying ass out of bed when they refuse to get up. Meredith took her edge.

George took her edge. Hell, Bambi probably did it more than anyone. Double-oh-seven, turkey boy, Bambi, always messing with his hair, like an expression of himself. Pining over Meredith for the longest time; it was pathetic, really. George made Cristina wrack her brain and find the tiniest bit of sympathy she could muster, because she didn't think his delicate constitution could handle anything else. He actually proved her wrong. George, the hot-dog eater, the whiner, spineless George. Just now going through his adolescence and growing up, about damn time. The guy she gave her couch to, albeit grudgingly, and unwittingly learned some people skills from. The one who softened her a little bit. Who would've thought that was possible? George took her edge, too.

Izzie took her edge. The model, the one everyone hoped was the nurse. State school, panties-posing Izzie. Absolutely shameless, 8-feet-tall, perfect boobs. The pretty girl with everything to prove. She has absolutely no control. She was, in Cristina's opinion, the opposite of herself. Cristina was iron, when she first came into the program anyway; she was controlled, she knew the lines and did not even toe them. She was observant of the rules and procedures, and everything was textbook-style to her. She was a fine edge, definition, head over heart. She was a surgeon, before anything else. Izzie was different. She was warm playdough, soft in your hands. She was like a comfort food; someone you knew was reliable without ever actually having to test them first. She was a mother, an ovarian sister. She was sweet and bubbly and completely without Cristina's tendency to repress and box and control her emotions; quite the opposite, she gave them wings and let them fly. She let them guide her. She wore her heart on her sleeve at all times. She threw herself wholly into every patient's case; Izzie felt their triumphs, and mourned their losses. She was the heart and the soul and the inner compass that Cristina lacked, and despite Cristina's attempts to distance herself from it, she saw herself beginning to adopt the habit. Izzie took her edge.

Her patients took her edge. The object of the game was to see every patient as a case, an ailment, not a unique and emotional individual. If you could remain detached, if you could distance yourself from the human aspect and focus entirely on the medicine, you'd be better off for it. In theory, it was doable. In practice, Cristina found herself faced with increasingly-personal cases, patients that became people in her eyes and touched her in places that rarely stirred. It became more than an illness; it became a life. It became more than a cadaver when there was a beating heart and warm blood rushing through the veins and lungs filling slowly with precious oxygen. She tried to be distant, tried to be formal and untouchable, but some people just steal your heart despite your best efforts, and this was probably the biggest adjustment that Cristina had looked right over. Patients became more than "heart guy" or "collapsed lung guy" – they became names matched with faces, fears and anguish and hope that stuck to Cristina like some kind of filth on your skin that you just can't scrub off. They were permanent, they were unforgettable. Cristina found herself wanting more than to fix the problem, cure the illness; she wanted to save the person. She wanted them to live. That desire took her edge.

The cracks in her wall became chasms, opening up and allowing people to walk straight through, invading her space. The boxes opened up and the emotions ran amok, making her feel things she'd forgotten she could feel. The lines became increasingly blurry, difficult to even see anymore. It became more difficult to search for them, and easier just to walk through life, crossing what boundaries you might and hoping for the best. Hoping you cross into someone's space that you want to stay in.

Watching from the hallway, peering through the glass at the man lying alone in the hospital bed, Cristina knew that _he_ had taken her edge. He, flexing his hand, attempting to control the tremors that plagued him, had taken her edge. He had broken it, mutilated it beyond recognition. He had smeared the definition of the lines that kept everyone a safe distance from her, he had stepped over them without recognition of her fears, her anxieties, the hope she would never let anyone see. Or maybe he did recognize them, and he just stepped over anyway.

She approached him swiftly, entering the room with a cat-like grace and quiet that she was known for, so quickly and purposefully that he didn't even realize she was there until she had slipped one small, soft hand over his large, trembling one. They did not speak – her boundaries were shattered to a point of non-verbal communication, yet another skill she would've never adapted to before coming here; before these people, before this life. She laced her fingers through his, holding his shaking hand steady, and they did not speak. It was an understanding beyond words. It was an understanding her edge could have never given her. It was a human understanding.


End file.
